This application claims the benefit of Korean Patent Application No. 2002-32163 filed on Jun. 8, 2002, in the Korean Industrial Property Office, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wall-mounted type microwave oven, and more particularly, to a wall-mounted type microwave oven having a lighting device which illuminates the inside of a cooking chamber and a kitchen space below an oven body of the microwave oven.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 1 shows a conventional wall-mounted type microwave oven 3. Generally, the wall-mounted type microwave oven 3 is installed on a wall 2 over an oven range 1, and carries out an exhausting operation to exhaust gas and fumes generated from the oven range 1 to the outside, as well as a cooking operation to cook food using electromagnetic waves.
The wall-mounted type microwave oven 3 is provided at its top with an upper lighting device 5 which illuminates a cooking chamber 4 to enable a user to observe the inside of the cooking chamber 4. Furthermore, the wall-mounted type microwave oven 3 is provided at its bottom with a lower lighting device 6 which illuminates a kitchen space below the wall-mounted type microwave oven 3. Generally, the upper lighting device 5 is automatically turned on when a user carries out a cooking activity, while the lower lighting device 6 is turned on when a lighting button provided on a control panel (not shown) of the wall-mounted type microwave oven 3 is pressed.
However, since the above-described wall-mounted type microwave oven 3 requires an upper lighting device 5 to illuminate the cooking chamber 4 and a separate lower lighting device 6 to illuminate the kitchen space below the wall-mounted type microwave oven 3, productivity of the wall-mounted type microwave oven 3 is decreased and the manufacturing cost is increased due to an increased number of components.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a wall-mounted type microwave oven which is adapted to illuminate a cooking chamber and a kitchen space below an oven body, simultaneously, by using a single lighting device.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows and, in part, will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention.
To achieve the above and other objects of the present invention, there is provided a wall-mounted type microwave oven comprising an oven body which defines an outer appearance of the microwave oven, and includes a cooking chamber, an exhaust system provided in the oven body to exhaust gas and fumes in a kitchen space below the oven body, and a lighting device which is provided at a lower portion of the oven body and generates light to illuminate the cooking chamber and the kitchen space, wherein the cooking chamber includes an upper opening which is formed at a bottom plate of the cooking chamber and allows the light emitted from the lighting device to pass into the cooking chamber therethrough, and the oven body includes a lower opening which is formed at a bottom plate of the oven body and allows the light emitted from the lighting device to pass to the kitchen space therethrough.
The lighting device may be provided in a space defined between the bottom plate of the cooking chamber and the bottom plate of the oven body.
The lighting device may include a housing having an upper opened end attached to the bottom plate of the cooking chamber and a lower opened end attached to the bottom plate of the oven body, wherein the upper and lower opened ends correspond to the upper and lower openings.
The upper and lower openings may be provided with corresponding transparent cover plates to prevent foreign substances from entering into the interior of the housing.
The upper opening may be equipped with a porous shield plate, which allows the light emitted from the lighting device to pass therethrough while preventing high-frequency electromagnetic waves from passing therethrough.